Flying Fish!

Those wacky
Taiwanese! You never see Americans flying stuff like this, or US
companies producing them, but the couple of people we'd seen flying the
GWS Ladybug said it was great in wind, and Dave wanted a wind
plane. (That was before he got the T-Hawk
or the various flying wings, all of which are
great in wind.)

One of the ladybug pilots told us that he'd heard that the fish
actually flew better than the ladybug or the pizza, so that's what Dave
got. (Followed by lots of buyers' remorse bemoaning how he should
have gotten one of the other two.)

Building

Construction was
a breeze compared to other GWS kits. The fuselage is very simple
and well designed, and goes together quickly. Balance isn't as
critical as it is on the zagi-type flying wings, and it's easy to get a
good balance regardless of the batteies used.

Flying

The fish is one of the easiest flying planes we have. It springs
into the air, massively overpowered at 7 oz with a 350C motor, then it
floats around easily, or does spectacular aerobatic maneuvers if you
ask it.

The
best, though, is its spin. It's worth buying one just to fly it
up
high, put it into a spin and watch it come down like a fast-spinning
leaf. Beautiful!

Dave says it flies great inverted, too; he's never had a plane that
would fly inverted (the E-Starter sorta
will if you try really hard, but it's difficult to keep it there) but
with the fish, it's no problem. Of course, simple things like
loops and rolls are a breeze. Dave's looking forward to learning
more aerobatics on it.

Crashing

The nose section
is a bit weak, and without any control inputs (e.g. if
you lose your radio or lose sight of the plane) it tends to glide
nose-down, and come down nose-first. Dave's already had one crash
that broke the engine mount and the foam around it. But a little
epoxy and tape put the plane back in the air the afternoon of the crash.

That afternoon he flew it into a signpost. Tore the wing a
little, but nothing packing tape couldn't fix. Nothing else was
hurt. I guess this fish is stronger than it looks.